Chapter 3 introduction

What kind of knowledge is history?What is the use of studying it? Anyone with a little knowledge will answer this question without hesitation: history is a lesson from others.What is a lesson learned?They will reply without hesitation: I can regard what the past people have achieved as a model; if they make mistakes, they should try to avoid them. This is the so-called "law precept".This may sound like it at first, but if you think about it carefully, you will know otherwise.Where in the world is there really the same thing?The so-called similarity is due to inaccurate observation, and it is mistaken to regard different things as the same.Let alone those who are far away.After the Europeans came from the East, why didn't our method of dealing with them not be based on historical experience?What was the result?But is history useless?Those who don't know the past and are determined to go their own way are not undefeated.So what should we do?

Although history is a book of events, what we seek is reason rather than facts.Li is a generalization of many things, and a thing is just one thing.Since there are no two things in the world that are really the same, if you stick to the method of dealing with one thing in order to deal with the other, you will naturally fail.This is not the case if we deal with the facts based on the principles that encompass all things.However, reason is seen because of things, and it is useless to seek reason because of things.Therefore, when we study, we must not ignore the facts, and we should not memorize the facts.

To deal with a thing, one must understand its nature.After understanding, the art of coping is to be satisfied without asking for it.And to understand the nature of a matter, it is necessary to know its past.A person, why become such a person?For example, people who have been in the officialdom for a long time are somewhat bureaucratic; people who have been in business for generations are somewhat philistine;Was he born this way?Undoubtedly, it was cultivated by decades of being an official, doing business, and studying.But the same is true for a country and a society.Why is Chinese society different from that of Europe?Why is European society different from Japan?If you don't study it, you don't care about it. If you deduce it carefully, you will naturally know that the reason is extremely profound and complicated.But how to study the past?However, there are many things in the past, can An Neng remember them all?What happens in society every day, what is recorded in newspapers, is one-tenth of a billion trillion.One day's newspapers can no longer be read all over, not to mention the accumulation of ten, hundred, thousand, or ten thousand years?But what to do?

It should be noted that we need to know a person, not to know everything about him in the past and keep it in mind.Me, why did I become such a me?It is always easy to understand introspection, but how can you remember everything about yourself in the past?But to understand why society is like this, it is not necessary to remember all the past events. It is enough to know "the things that make the present society the present society".However, this is difficult again. If we want to ask about its origin, we don't know many things right now.What it can answer is probably unreliable.But what if we can be based on the past to explain the present?

This is the reason why we are ignorant, and this is what history is looking for.The pursuit of history is nothing more than (1) searching for past facts, (2) explaining them, (3) using them to explain the current society, and (4) instructing us on the way to proceed by speculating on the future. Can the history of the past be up to this task?Given the number of failures resulting from drawing on history to cope with the facts, it is undoubtedly impossible.What is the reason for its failure?There are many things to list, the most important of which are naturally more political.Turn over the twenty-five histories and have a look (it used to be called twenty-four histories, which were designated as official histories during the Qing Dynasty. During the Republic of China, Ke Shaomin's "Xinyuan History" was approved by the decree of President Xu Shichang, adding In the official history, so now it should be called the Twenty-Five History), what is recorded are all wars and attacks, government orders issued by people in the temple, and the biographical lineage of these people.In the past, people called "Zuo Zhuan" a book of relatives; in modern times, people call the Twenty-Four Histories the genealogy of emperors.Just looking at these things, can you understand why society is like this?Why was there such a problem in the past history?This is because history is a thing of the age of civilization, and in the age of civilization, the state has already appeared and became the center of activities. Ordinary people only look at it on the surface and think that politics can cover everything, at least it is the most important item among social phenomena. .In fact, politics is only on the surface.Political activities rely entirely on society as their foundation.Society, behind politics, has done countless broader and more fundamental things.One cannot understand politics without understanding society.Therefore, people who talk about history today not only focus on politics, but also on culture.

What is culture?It has always been a narrow interpretation, which only refers to academic skills, which is inappropriate and needs no discussion.To put it broadly, all man-made things are included in culture, but why do animals have no culture?It should be known that culture is what makes humans different from animals.Where is the difference?All animals can respond to external stimuli and adapt to the external world.However, its adaptation to the outside world is mostly based on instinct, and its power is extremely limited, and it will never be more than this.People are not.Therefore, the world in which humans live is quite different from the world in which animals live.The reason why people can do this is (1) that they can think of various methods because of their special brains; (2) their hands and feet are completely separated, and they can make various tools to carry out their plans; To communicate with each other, and its expansion is the text.What one person knows and can do can be passed on to others; what the previous person knows and can do can also be passed on to others.Therefore, human work does not start from the beginning, but is done successively.Unlike runners who start from the same place, they are like postmen on a post station, connecting one by one to the destination.The route he took is naturally long, and what later generations have achieved is beyond the knowledge of predecessors.However, culture is a common karma to control the environment due to people's unique endowments and good means of transportation.Animals also evolve, but its evolution, unless its body is changed to adapt to the outside world, can only be achieved through genetic mutation and elimination, and it is naturally very slow.Man only needs to change the tools he uses and the way he deals with things.The structure of our body is absolutely the same as that of savages, but the achievements in controlling the environment are very different, that is, one is due to biological evolution and the other is due to cultural evolution.Anthropologically, it has been proved that human physique has not changed much since the Ice Age.The autopsy of Egypt also proved that its body structure was the same as that of people today.It can be seen that the evolution of human beings is all about cultural evolution.It is a major mistake for Heng people to talk about cultural status and national ability together.Geneticists, when discussing the evolution of society, place too much emphasis on the innate abilities of individuals, and they are also burdened by such common views.As for those who intentionally exaggerate the ability of a race, it is tantamount to admitting that their so-called evolution will return to biological evolution.Theoretically speaking, many human behaviors also come from the organism, which is no different from animals, but they are all colored by culture.For example, the matter of eating and drinking men and women is the most obvious example.Therefore, in theory, although all human behaviors cannot be called cultural behaviors, in fact, almost all human behaviors are related to culture.It can be seen that the scope of culture is vast.If one can understand culture, one can naturally understand society (human behavior, derived from the organism, is just an ability. How it exerts this ability depends entirely on its form determined by the culture).

Are the cultures of the world unified?Or plural?This problem cannot be solved today.Those who study history may leave this issue aside for the time being.Because there are obviously many different cultures at present, waiting for our separate research.Having said that, it is also wrong for a person who studies one culture to concentrate on this one culture and see nothing about the rest.Because (1) different cultures still have common principles; (2) it is true that various cultures in the world communicate and interweave, and are related to each other.Culture is originally a tool for human beings to control the environment, and culture varies from environment to environment.After its rise, because it can transform the environment, it makes the environment more different.Humans then evolved in an even more different environment.The culture, of course, is even more different.There is no doubt that culture has a communicative nature.The principle of this is that human beings are born with the nature of seeking good (wisdom) and love (benevolence), so those with excellent culture often want to promote their culture to groups with different cultures, in order to improve their lives and conspire with mankind Happiness (in which people think that they are good but are not, if they are forced to promote, they will cause disputes, or even lead to disasters. The spread of religion is one example. But this is self-defeating and ignorant, and does not harm the goodness of its original intention).And the bad ones are always readily accepted (the ones that are deeply closed and stubbornly rejected have no other reasons and should be regarded as exceptions).This is the reason why cultures in the world communicate and interweave.But human nature is the same.So in a similar environment, there can be a similar culture.Even if the environment is different, it can only change its form, but not its principle (just because of the same principle, the form cannot be the same; that is, because of the difference in form, it can be seen that the principle is the same, and the ancient Xia Ge Dongqiu's metaphor is the best).This is different cultures, so there are common principles of reason.In reasoning it is so.As a matter of fact, self-impedement and convergence are almost the undoubted track of evolution.Try to look at our country, from the ancient tribes, to a larger country; then to a larger country; domination.The same is true when looking at the history of foreign countries.Today's world is connected, and there is no doubt that the different cultures of the past should merge to give birth to a new culture.But when it comes to culture, it should be the culture of the world, and the histories of all countries in the world can also be integrated into one.Why are there so-called national histories to study different cultures?This is because the research methods must be combined to see their greatness, and must first be divided to achieve their essence.Moreover, people who study have their own standpoints.As far as China is concerned, if we want to plan future progress, we must first understand the past situation.Even in terms of welcoming foreign cultures, there must be prerequisites.If you don't first understand your own situation, you can't set a policy for welcoming and rejecting it.Therefore, if we want to understand Chinese history today, we must have a good knowledge of foreign history, and Chinese history also has its own special research needs.

The human society in the past seemed to be in a state of constant movement and silence.Let's see, any society, in the past, has a period of rapid development.After a period of time, it stagnated.After reading for a while, you can make rapid progress again.has returned to stagnation.So much more mutual.What is the reason?The person who explained it said that rhythm is the law of life.As with individuals, so with society.You can only stand up and work hard when you encounter difficulties, and when you feel satisfied, you will stagnate.During this period, society will not invent anything of its own; neither will it passively refuse to accept the outside world, or it will actively resist it.Nothing in the world remains the same (both natural and man-made).People, because their senses are dull, or even though they have feelings, their behavior is sluggish, they will not pay attention to them and try to deal with them when they feel difficult.Just like the house we live in, we refuse to clean it until New Year's Eve, so the dust accumulates and we have to work hard to clean it.This is the real reason why the world is in chaos.If it is checked and corrected at any time when it changes gradually, it will naturally not be like this.The reason why people can't do this is that people in the past thought that this was a law limited to one movement and one stillness, and there was nothing to be done about it.I thought otherwise.This kind of statement is due to the fact that the phenomena produced by the body and the super-machine phenomena are discussed together, which is a mistake.It should be noted that as far as a person is concerned, after working, he needs to rest for a certain period of time; whether young people are active or old people are quiet, there is nothing to do.Society is not.Individuals have different ages, but society does not.After individual activities, rest must be followed, while society can move in this part and rest in that part.However, because human beings are limited to the body, they cannot constantly cope with the outside world by self-improvement, and they can make up for their shortcomings with the cooperation of society.However, the insensitivity and sluggishness of behavior in the past are just social morbidity (for example, due to the poor education system, people in the society do not know foresight and cannot foresee disasters; Reluctance to reform, etc., can only be said to be a sickness of society).We can correct its sickness, and the phenomenon of chaos will naturally cease to exist, and the world will be brought under control.This is the best hope of us who study history.

Ma Duanlin's "Tongkao·Preface" divides historical facts into two categories: one is the rise and fall of rational chaos, and the other is rules and classics.This statement is quite representative of the views of previous historians.A twenty-five histories, taken apart, the so-called biography, mostly records facts such as the rise and fall of the chaos, while the annals mainly records the rules and regulations (there are both) and the rise and fall of the chaos. Facts happen at any time, today cannot predict tomorrow.Statutes and classics are preset by people for the future, and their nature is relatively long-lasting.Therefore, the former can be called dynamic historical facts, and the latter can be called static historical facts.Historical facts are indeed nothing more than these two categories, but it is too narrow to limit their scope to politics.It should be noted that the scope of culture is vast and boundless.The two phenomena, except (1) belong to nature; (2) or come from living things, but are purely derived from the body, everything should be included.It synthesizes tangible and intangible things, not only restricts people's behavior, but also molds people's thoughts.People in a culture cannot do anything outside of this cultural model, so if we want to talk about cultural history, we must greatly expand the historical materials of the past.The draft university curriculum stipulated by the Ministry of Education, which is a common compulsory subject for all colleges, has cultural history but no general history.Later, it was changed to general history, and the notes should focus on culture.Probably because of the political phenomenon, it should not be ignored. I am afraid that after it is changed to cultural history, the lecturers will ignore political matters, and the intention is very thorough.However, there is really not much time for lectures on the general history of China in universities.If the organization is still the same as that of middle school and below, the teaching will inevitably be repeated.So I now, for a way.Firstly, the cultural phenomenon is described in chapters, and then synthesized according to the times.In this book of mine, the materials are quite carefully selected, and the explanation also strives to be open-minded.I hope that those who have read it will have a little knowledge of the important cultural phenomena in Chinese history, and therefore have a little understanding of the current situation; they can predict the future; thus, they can give some inspiration to our behavior.With my shallow knowledge, and what I hope is like this, I can't help but mess up the bonfire, but it is always my hope.